Adrien #2
The black helmet of hers snaps to me, then she laughs unapologetically, clearly pleased with herself.
And I laugh too, I can’t help it. She’s enjoying this way too much, and now that she’s not riding like a complete maniac, I finally get to enjoy it too—how ungodly hot she looks, and how her voice in my helmet makes me feel like I’m melting straight into the metal beneath me.
The light turns green and we take off together. She doesn’t try to shake me anymore.
“I like your bike,” she says, her helmet tilting toward me, like she’s checking if I’m still there. “It suits me,” she adds, proudly.
Oh God, yes. It really does.
“It’s yours if you keep the speed under sixty.”
“Eighty,” she squeaks out like a happy child.
“No chance of bargaining. I said sixty.”
I literally hate myself for doing this, but I know she wants someone to trust her, to let her be free. So here we are. Me gifting that beast to an even worse beast. Of course.
“Seventy.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“Okay. I’ll try,” she says, voice threaded with a smile.
If my ears were capable of some kind of climax of their own, this would be it—every time she even so much as laughs into that microphone.
Another set of lights appears ahead of us, and we come to a stop again, side by side, waiting for green.
“How can you ride this good?” I ask.
“There’s nothing difficult about it.”
“You’re way too controlled.”
“Okay,” she says, pausing. “If you want the truth…”
“I’m listening.”
“Tom had a bike. He taught me.”
“What?!” I snap, my mind instantly replaying every memory of her junior and senior years. “And you didn’t tell me?”
She laughs. “Of course I didn’t. You probably haven’t noticed, but you had some minor jealousy issues.” She says it lightly, amused, clearly mocking my teenage self.
Who said I don’t have them anymore?
“Tom the fucking cheerleader,” I mutter, falling into a sulk.
I hear her laugh quietly under her breath just before we take off.
When she makes the familiar turn off the highway, something unsettling slides down my spine. I know exactly where she’s heading. Cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck, the wind catching it and making me shiver.
“So,” I try, forcing my voice into something casual and failing miserably. “What else did he teach you?”
“Jesus,” she groans. “Are we really doing this again?”
“I guess we are,” I reply, sounding annoyed even to myself.
“Nothing,” she says. “For the hundredth time—nothing.”
“Mhm,” I manage, jealousy chewing straight through my ribs anyway.
“Relax,” she says, and her voice loses its edge. “You have all my other firsts.”
That knocks the air clean out of my lungs. Everything inside me ignites at once, my mouth curling into a stupidly satisfied smile.
What is she doing to me?
Don’t think about it.
Don’t think about it.
Don’t think about it.
Not now. Not while flying down a highway.
We need to change the subject.
“You were my first kiss,” I say. “By the way.”
“What?” she squeals in my helmet. “That’s not true. You kissed Stacy at my thirteenth birthday party.”
“That’s a myth,” I reply calmly. “Urban legend.”
“You didn’t kiss her?”
“No. She had a crush on Kas. And it wouldn’t have counted anyway. It was just a game.”
“You stopped playing after that,” she says slowly, like a memory is finally snapping into place.
“Because I wanted to kiss you,” I say. “But not during some stupid game.”
She goes quiet.
“And you stopped playing too,” I add.
“Because I was pissed that you kissed Stacy, you idiot.”
I burst out laughing, undone by this childish misunderstanding.
We slip between a few cars and end up riding side by side again, and something warm curls in my chest at how synchronized we are.
The wind catches her white braid, lifting it now and then, the bright silver flashing against the black metal of the bike. She looks really unholy like this—a streak of light cutting through a dark, empty road.
We ride like that for a while, close, matched, our speed finally steady enough that my heart stops trying to claw its way out of me. The road stretches open in front of us, the world narrowing down to asphalt, wind, and her presence humming straight into my skull.
I can sometimes hear her breathing. Not loud. Just… there. Faint little inhales and exhales threading through the static, like she’s closer than she should be. Like she’s right at my ear instead of half a lane away.
“You’re quiet,” she says after a moment.
“So are you,” I answer.
“You sound different like this.”
“Different how?” I ask, but I know exactly what she means.
She doesn’t answer right away. I can vividly picture her lips pressing together behind the visor, that little thoughtful pause she always does.
“Closer,” she finally says.
The word settles low in my body.
“Helmet magic,” I mutter.
She hums softly and the sound goes straight through me, too intimate, like it bypasses every filter I have. I’m absolutely not handling this like a stable, reasonable human being.
“I can hear your smile,” she says.
And I can hear hers too.
?
After more than an hour, she slows down by the gate and climbs off the bike.
“Nat,” I venture, suddenly unsure of what I’m even allowed to say anymore, because she’s grown quieter with every mile we got closer to the mansion.
“Hm?”
“Please don’t take the helmet off. Someone could see you.”
She doesn’t answer. She just pushes the gate open and slips through. I follow at a distance, determined not to crowd her or to make this feel like control.
The tall grass swallows our boots as we wade through it, dry blades whispering against the leather as we walk closer to the ruin.
The mansion looms ahead of us like a blackened relic.
What used to be pale stone and wide glass now stands charred and hollow, the facade scarred with long soot stains that crawl upward like frozen smoke.
Tall columns frame the entrance, or what’s left of it, cracked but upright, too proud to collapse.
The roof is gone entirely, caved in years ago, leaving jagged beams exposed to the sky like broken ribs.
Ivy and wild grass have crept up the walls, softening the violence of the fire with green indifference, but the smell never really left.
It looks almost… haunted.
She stands there, staring straight ahead.
It’s late, that gloomy hour when afternoon is already giving up but evening hasn’t fully claimed the sky yet. Leaves rustle under my shoes as I step closer, tentatively, like I’m approaching a wounded animal.
My chest tightens with something heavier than guilt. I stripped her of something she called home. Twice. No matter how noble I dressed it up in my head, no matter how much I convinced myself I was saving her, it was still a home I burned without asking her.
She moves suddenly, heading toward the tree line where the staff house still stands, just overgrown with ivy like something abandoned.
She stops in front of it, arms hanging loosely at her sides.
“I saw this burning too,” she says quietly.
Her voice travels through the helmet speaker like something that was never meant for me, like she whispered it only to herself and I somehow trespassed inside her mind.
She stands there for so long I’m afraid to even shift my weight. Afraid to breathe too loudly. Whatever she needs to confront here, I feel like I don’t have the right to interrupt it.
“This is where the flames took you away from me,” she says, barely audible, still staring at the staff house.
Then I hear it. A sharp inhale.
She presses the button on the helmet abruptly, cutting the connection, then silence slams into me.
She’s crying.
I don’t need to see it. I know.
I step in front of her, but I can’t see anything through the dark visor. Fuck this. I yank my own helmet off first, the cold air hitting my damp skin, then reach for hers and ease it off her head.
Her eyes are burning red and wet, but empty.
The same emptiness as that night in the garage.
The same hollow, distant stare, like she’s standing here physically but her soul is somewhere else entirely.
She looks straight through me, not at me.
Heavy tears slide down her cheeks slowly, but without a sound, like her body is crying but she isn’t even participating in it.
My heart starts racing so fast it almost hurts. A sharp, animal panic claws up my spine. I’m losing her again.
But then—her pupils shift. They find me. And suddenly the emptiness fractures. It’s replaced with something else. She doesn’t have to say anything. I know.
I don’t reach for her. I don’t comfort her. I don’t touch her.
Everything I could offer now feels painfully small, bordering on obscene, next to the weight of everything I’ve done to her.
So I stay still.
She wipes her cheeks with the heel of her palm, putting on that expression again, the one that refuses to admit weakness, the one that would rather shatter than be pitied. Then she turns sharply, almost angrily, and climbs back onto the bike.
I follow immediately without hesitation. But instead of heading toward the estate, she veers off onto the narrow dirt path barely visible through the trees.
Oh.
Oh no.
She’s going to the church. To our church.
The ride there feels like seconds and an eternity at the same time.
The trees thin out and the gothic building appears between them, stone darkened by years and weather, one heavy cloud hanging directly above the tower like it’s been assigned to guard it.
The autumn wind shifts through the branches, restless but quiet.
“Is it abandoned?” she asks, her voice still thin from crying, but steady enough to pretend it didn’t happen.
“Yes. Father Matteo moved years ago,” I answer.
“Can we get inside?”
She’s already scanning the doors when she says it.
“I don’t know,” I reply.